April 08, 2005

Hustle, Passion and Resiliency AKA Barrier to entry

The older I get the more I realize that business is about three very basic things:

1. Hustle
2. Passion
3. Resiliency

You have those things it really doesn’t matter what the idea is… you can change your ideas all day long, in fact
evolving is what you’re supposed to do in business. However, you can’t substitute hustle, passion, or resiliency.

I buy this 100%. When Byron, Reza and I started Trigo and had to go out and raise money from VC's, we would get asked million's of times:

What is our barrier of entry?

Why can't XYZ do this?

Why would we win?

What happens if SAP/IBM/Oracle announce a product in this space?

Now we came up with "marketing" answers for all of these questions but the reality is that both us and the good VC's know that our answers were "bullshit" but that does not mean there isn't value in coming up with these answers. Ultimately all of these questions are trying to answer the singular question of how are you as a startup going to overcome the sales and marketing challenge of competing with the big boys?

Its a marketing and positioning issue that we had to think about. Ultimately its hustle, passion and resiliency that is going to determine whether we succeeded or not but having a good marketing angle is like having a good map - it does not guarantee that you will get to your destination but it does increase the odds.